Managing the biggest beauty brand in the world - Lex Bradshaw-Zanger, L'Oreal CMO

22:28They looked at basically who, how many people are in the market for your products any one time. And they worked out on average only 5 % of your potential audience are actually in the market when you're, you know, when you're communicating to them. So, of course, what we're doing is we're forgetting we need to be building plans for the 95%, not just the 5%. And that I just thought was just such a stunning data point to kind of make, you know, show the importance why brand building is so key. No, no. I mean, yes, I have heard that point. And it's super interesting because it just it forces people to change slightly this notion of being at the bottom of the funnel and trying to find someone.

23:02It depends on what category you know, because we're in FMCG, so frequency is high. But when you talk about cars, for example, you know, the car industry, the auto industry knows that much better. They know that the in-market audience is quite small. And so they're building leads and the pipeline is longer. Well, there was a case that I loved. This is 20 years ago now, but Volkswagen shifted. They had this belief originally that basically all the investments should go in store, right? In, do you call it stores? Dealerships. That's it, yeah. That's a classic, isn't it? An industry calling itself by its internal communication rather than what the customer would.

23:36Anyway, the dealership, right? So all the marketing was in dealership. We want the best dealers. We want the most amazing brochures. We want the best experience as you go. And it makes sense. Until they did the research, which they worked out, apparently that 90%, I think it was 90 % of people, have already decided what car they want to buy before they go in. And what they worked out is actually most people's consideration sets of which car they want to buy happen in the three or four years between buying cars. So you're almost constantly doing this kind of mental, you know, kind of, oh, which car should I get next sort of thing.

24:12And they basically, they flipped almost their entire spend above the line to sort of build, you know, build kind of brand awareness when people weren't in the market. Because actually that's when the decision got made. I worked on the GM business in the Middle East for a long time and notably Cadillac, which is an exciting brand to work on over there. And so completely that research was super relevant. And they said people spend more time looking at cars in the street than they do in the dealership. And so there was all this kind of activation is how do you make every car on the street the equivalent of the dealership?

24:41And you start to use your phone and you use augmented reality to see what's happening and that sort of thing. But it's true. Now, talking of cars, we've just learned, haven't we, that Elon Musk, after many, many, many years, has decided to do advertising for the first time, which I thought was interesting. Now, the marketing Twitterverse seems to be divided on this one because it's like I seem to see on the one hand, everyone's going, well, there we go. It's just proven all along that, you know, advertising, advertising works. And the other half of Martin and Twitter are basically saying, well, it proves you can build a brand to become 300 billion without advertising.

25:11Do you have a point of view on which way it goes? So there's a cynical point of view that he's just trying to drive Twitter's advertising revenue. And so he needs to talk it up. No, I think he's built an incredible brand because he had a massive first mover advantage. Tesla was way ahead and he has his own technique, his own style of kind of communicating and building the brand. but probably him as the only megaphone for the brand isn't scalable beyond a certain point and then i think if you look at what's happening in the ev industry probably getting to the point where the competitors are getting as good as tesla and so he needs to show real usb real differentiation and he can't do that on his own so i think there's there's lots of things happening you know there's there's market dynamics that mean that they've got to change their approach there's the dynamism of his category the business but uh it's true he's built a lot of brands he's a brand himself he's the spokesperson for that brand and he gets a lot of coverage probably not scalable eventually i think right and i know when i thought about i i think both answers are correct actually because i i think can you build a brand without advertising clearly he's proven it but i think what people forget is advertising is not the only lever to build mental availability because you think about what you know he has become famous through putting you know rockets on mars or whatever and you know building gigafactories and even like he'll announce some software upgrade on or Tesla and that will get talked about.

26:28So he himself has become a media channel, hasn't he? And built fame, a bit like P.T. Barnum when he kind of created the circus and invented the greatest showman. So I think Elon himself, and I think we forget actually that personalities can become media channels. He's done that very well. But at the same time, would advertising help him now that he's got less of a product advantage? Well, yes, it would. There was something interesting in what he said. I think he talked about the fact that if he was going to do advertising, I think he mentioned two things. He said, one, it would be more content-led.

26:55That's an interesting kind of way to go. And he also talked about the fact that it would look at features of the car that were less known. And I think there's a big parallel to our business. I'm not saying that beauty and cars are the same, but, you know, we use a lot of influence and advocacy and UGC. So other people talking about the product. And there's definitely a lot of people talking about Tesla, which is why people are talking about it. But at a certain point, when you want to build your brand based on specific attributes or specific functionality, and people aren't talking about that, then you've got to bring the brand voice alongside the other voices to balance that out.

27:24And so that's probably what he's trying to do. You know, if Tesla's got a new competitive advantage because of whatever, what the onboard computer's doing or the autopilot, and not everybody's talking about that, then he's got to get that word out somewhere. And I think that's a big piece of marketing today is not just the brand talking, but everybody else talking. How do you manage that? How does it drive the brand? How does it drive specific messaging? How does it drive commerce? There's lots to manage there. Well, this must be a good conversation to have, actually, because obviously L 'Oreal being the world's biggest beauty.

27:52We are the number one beauty company in the world. That's amazing. And it's funny because obviously you're famous for the L 'Oreal brand, but there are so many more brands within that. I have to be careful. We have the number one beauty brand in the world, L 'Oreal Paris. We have the number one makeup brand in the world, Maybelline New York. But we have, whatever, 35 other brands. And I imagine influencers form a core part of what you do as well. So what's the key, particularly in your category, for why influencers are so important and how do you use them? So I think, well, so the first thing is, I saw this study a long time ago that looked at different categories and looked at sort of paid, owned, earned, and looked at which categories had more earned in them.

28:27And the number one category was travel. Everybody looks at TripAdvisor before going to a hotel or to a destination. And the second category is beauty. So beauty is massively up there in terms of I listen to people I trust, people who are credible before making a choice. for us it's it's it's an enormous space you know from brand ambassadors who are walking on the catwalk at cam film festival all the way down to sort of your friends talking about products and everything in between you know we have dermatologists we have salon professionals so it's it's really understanding who are the advocates so you've got i mean there's lots of different terminology you've got brand ambassadors celebrities they call them kols in asia you know key opinion leaders you've got medical professionals hair care professionals you've got your aunt your uncle, somebody who lives down the road.

29:12And so all of these different people at different levels are communicating. And we talk about how people are on TikTok all the time, creating content and sharing is how do you harness that? How do you make it available? So we work lots of different ways. We work short term, long term, seeding products, every different way you can imagine with different influencers and KOLs and affiliates. And that's all the way down into commerce now. You know, TikTok shop started here in the UK, but it's an enormous business in Asia. in China it's enormous business in Indonesia which I'm going off to run now it's enormous business in terms of actually affiliates selling so it seems it's a different model it comes back to this point about content it's all the way through the funnel you know you're exposed to something there's content that's interesting and then you're clicking through and buying it I think I think we called it retail attainment a few years ago I don't know whether that phrase is going to stick but so just to understand that there's actually I'm not for a minute imagining I'd ever become an influencer for a L 'Oreal product.

30:07But let's say I was. Maybe, I don't know, anti-aging cream. There we go. There we go. I'll be your anti-aging cream. I'm sure you've got something in your hair from us today. Well, indeed. Yeah, probably have, actually. So were I an influencer for you? Does that mean that if I produce some content, it goes out there, the audience could literally just click and buy just on one click? Is that what you're saying? So there are lots of different ways to work. And I think there are really, you know, two groups now. There are influencers who want to still use their audience and want to be a publisher.

30:33They want to be a media. So that's the big people. That's big celebrities who've got big reach. And so there you're more like a media product. I'm going to sell my reach and I'm going to sell that. And there's another group that says, okay, maybe I haven't got a lot of reach, but I can make really good content that's going to make people click through and buy. And then that becomes an affiliate model and you're taking a percentage of the sales. So TikTok shop is a great example of that. People are creating massive amounts of content on TikTok. And depending on how you're structured, you can tag a brand, tag a product, People can drop it in their basket and click through, and then a small percentage goes through to the affiliate.

31:05And that's an incredible model because you think about the equivalent. We have beauty advisors in some stores, in department stores, who kind of sell product, and to a certain lesser extent in supermarkets. Suddenly, you've got an enormous sales force of people talking about your product. I think that's about it. I mean, we were talking earlier about my trip to New York and being in Sephora and getting completely lost. I mean, I was over in New York, and my daughters gave me a list of things they wanted from Sephora. and I went in and I was just totally bewildered by like honestly that it was so big and I didn't know where to start I remember I think I tried to hunt out the youngest like assistant in the thinking she'd be close enough to my my daughter's age and just said if you had a hundred dollars and you were 15 what would you buy kind of thing but it's so true isn't it I mean particularly today when there is so much choice out there where do you start that actually influence have such a key role, don't they, in making that.

31:57I know, I mean, and my younger daughter actually is such a big fan of TikTok. And like almost every day she goes, oh, can we do this? And I'm like, why are we doing this? She goes, oh, so-and-so on TikTok kind of did it. And that's this explosion of social commerce. And it really is that, you know, it's maybe retailtainment is the old name and social commerce is the new name. But it's how do you go from content to commerce in a frictionless experience? And very, very quickly, you know, you're almost taking what we thought of as the marketing funnel and doing it in one step. Definitely. That's fascinating.

32:23So we talked about econometrics, the importance of measuring things, talking about influence. As you look at the world, obviously you've got a very big role, you cover the whole world. Not cover the whole world, sorry, but one day, one day you will. What other trends are you seeing out there that you think could be useful for marketers? So I think we've talked about two that are really important, the role that data plays everywhere. Whether that's data and understanding what's happening in the market, data against media and campaign planning, data against consumers. You know, we talk about first party and second party audiences and how people build audiences today.

32:57So I think, you know, data is transforming marketing everywhere. Doesn't mean that it's going to transform it to a point where its computer says yes or no. But I think everybody needs to understand. The other one we've talked a lot about is advocacy and influence. So many platforms now where consumers, professionals have to share a point of view and share content. I think creativity is still going to be really important. And we've talked about that a little bit. But we probably need to come back to creativity and come back to brands and branding. Now, I love to talk about distinctive assets or brand codes.

33:26In a world where probably, I don't know, 80 % of what a consumer sees is created by other consumers. How do you come in as the brand and make sure you're actually delivering on the message you want? And how do you do that in a way that cuts through, that creates the right emotional connection, leaves a lasting impact? We're going back to some of probably some core branding exercises. And that's hard work to do it well. I love your point there because actually the more proliferation in terms of media channels, the more proliferation in terms of number of influencers. I mean, you've probably got thousands of influencers, right?

34:00You're almost giving away kind of creative control a little bit, aren't you, to other people to do your production. That's where fluent devices and distinctive assets become critical, don't they? Because otherwise you're not going to have the thing that connects them up and makes them memorable and comes to mind quickly. And that's the hardest piece because working with influencers, you know, I think early on people really tried to control what the influencer was doing. They treated them like an agency, you know, seven back and forth. You need to tweak that. The color's not right. And suddenly an influencer says, well, hang on.

34:28If you want me for my authenticity and credibility, then you can't tell me what to do. So what we know is that, you know, we need to leave the freedom for their authenticity to come through, for them to be credible. But then how do you deliver the brand through that? I think there is a piece about distinctive assets. I think there's a piece maybe where we start to work with influencers and say, okay, well, if you could just use this asset or this color in a certain way, then it'll weave it together. But your point's exactly spot on. How do you weave together the multitude of different connections and touch points to make a coherent story?

34:58And as we know with Bud Light recently, right, It can also blow up, can't it? So you've also got to manage reputation and your perception of your brand in a very good way as well. Another thing I want to ask you about is a huge portfolio, lots of incredible brands. How do you innovate, particularly with the smaller brands? Because obviously you've got some very, very big well-known brands. But how do you also innovate, become innovative and also get behind smaller brands? We're one portfolio. Our brands are split into four divisions. The divisions historically have come through their sales channel.

35:28So our luxury division was sold in department stores, our dermatological beauty through pharmacies, mass through supermarkets, professional through salon. But that's all crossing over now, particularly online. You know, you'll find e-commerce sites where you'll find products from all of our divisions. So as everything comes together, all the brands are learning from each other. And so I think historically, it's a little bit like our conversation about media channels. Historically, things were very separate and they had their own way of operating. Now everything's coming together. And so we can do a lot of cross-pollination.

35:55And that's why we're structured in this way. so we have we have teams that work on specific brands but then we have teams that work across the whole business and their objective is to say okay how do i harness i don't know this platform or this content type make it work so we have you know 37 brands across i think five categories you know hair care hair color skin care fragrance makeup and so there is so much cross-pollination and understanding of what's going on and then there are of course differences in terms of how the brands come to market so it's really this model you know so we're not like some of our competitors where their brands are very very separate if some designer brands you really don't look at each other and don't cross-pollinate we do that a lot and and our skill sets mean that we can take everybody forward big brand or small brand so if you spot a new trend how would you decide which of those brands is going to be the one to lead that that trend or i mean do they get do they get to decide themselves or do you kind of look at it as a portfolio and go well we're best positioned to for that brand to lead us into that particular i think i think it depends on it depends on the trends you know so so we don't do product we don't create product in the uk or product created centrally out of what we call our marketing centers, some in Paris, some in New York, LA, Shanghai.

36:59So there's a piece about product trends where it depends on what sort of research and innovation we've got. So as beauty companies go, we are much, much larger in R &D, or we call it R &I, than anyone else in the world. So we do all of our own product development. So that's a big piece that means that, so trends in product, we can be faster to market and we can deploy them. Trends in communication and what people are talking about, I think there is a logic there that sits with the brands. You know, the brands know what sort of audience they're talking to and what's relevant for them. You know, a high-end brand like Lancome might not do the same thing as, I don't know, a mass brand like Nick's Professional Makeup.

37:32You know, they're not going to go to market in the same way and talk in the same way. So when there's a trend out there, they could potentially both get on it in a slightly different way or it's going to be relevant for one and not for the other. But that comes back to understanding your brand and understanding what it stands for and where it can operate. You know, it's really about the core understanding of brand DNA and what they do. Well, back to our strategy again, isn't it? Like being super clear on the strategies you talked about up front. I'd love to ask a couple of more personal questions then in terms of your career.

37:57It's lovely to find out about, you know, people's highs and lows and where they've been. If you look back over your career, tell me the toughest moment you've been in or the biggest challenge you've ever had to face. I think we talked about that. So I think when I took up my job in the UK, you know, it was the end of 2019. And then very quickly we moved into COVID. And there was a certain amount of, at least I felt, a certain amount of pressure on me to deliver very quickly. And so I think you come in and you say, okay, this is what I want to do and this is how we're going to do it. And you sort of just try and tell everybody that's what you want to do.

38:29And it comes back to this point about CMO being more chief and less maybe over operator. And so I think I quickly figured out that I had to reboot that. And it wasn't about that. It's about getting everybody aligned about what the objective is and letting people do the work. And I think that's probably, that was the hardest point because I think I probably really created a lot of friction and then hopefully turned that around to figure out, okay, you can only do your work through the teams, through the people. You know, an organization of our size, you know, we're almost 90 ,000 people globally.

38:59You can't expect to do something on your own. And so I think that's what comes down to, so being a CMO is not about doing the artwork or creating the logo, but I'm jealous of when you did that. It's about understanding how the organization works and setting up people for success. And so having that mindset shift and putting people in that position suddenly releases you from these sort of situations where you're creating friction between you and everybody else in the organisation. It's quite a different skill, isn't it? I still find it a challenge, I have to be saying, because I enjoy marketing and I enjoy the doing.

39:30And everyone's got a point of view, but there's definitely, you can see people that are good at it, can't they? Because the way they inspire people, empower, suggest, encourage, support, all those kind of things, or bring people together, be clear on the problem, all those sorts of things. It's definitely a skill set. As you look back, what would you say you're most proud of in your career so far? Well, there's a lot of things I'm proud of. I think I've had some fun in different places around the world and in different categories. But I have to say, I think, you know, being a CMO during COVID is probably a time when either you are beaten down or you come out thinking, wow, we made it, or you come out thinking, wow, I'm proud.

40:08And it was a supremely difficult time. You know, what was happening around the world, health, people's families, lockdowns. You know, there were lockdowns where people were comfortable and they had big houses and big gardens. and then there are people who are sat in small apartments and struggling. But I think we did something during lockdown, and I couldn't tell you the formula for it, where everybody came together. Everybody was really empowered to make a difference. And we had an amazing year from a business point of view here in the UK. We grew market share, we shifted. We'd already started the movement towards e-commerce and really much further down the digital transformation journey, and that set us up.

40:45I think I always used to tell the teams that it takes a consumer about 60 seconds to find their wallet and type their credit card number and to become an online consumer. But for a manufacturer to list a product online, to get the content up there, to figure out what the supply chain flows are, that can take months. So you've got to be ready for something like that. And we were ready. We were much more engaged in e-commerce before. And so we really had a year, 2020 in particular, where it was extremely powerful. We understood the shift towards performance media without killing the brand. We were set up online to understand what that meant.

41:16So I think that was a great year. I think people came out of it feeling good about working extremely hard, but feeling good about it and seeing the success. I remember actually for us at System One, our main business is testing advertising, right? And of course, what did everyone do in COVID? Stopped advertising. So, I mean, we saw about half our business disappeared overnight, something like that. And when you've got a high cost based business like ours, where you've got developers and big databases to maintain, and obviously, you know, people to employ. That gets very scary very quickly. And you sort of watch the sales go down every single week and just go, well, where's the bottom, you know, and very quickly run out of cash and have to make it be redundant.

41:57But you're absolutely right, though. The sort of pulling together, well, I guess it either kills you or it unites you, doesn't it? I suppose that's the thing is it can destroy you or unite you. But sometimes these big challenges actually force you to go, what is it we're good at? And pivot as well. I mean, I know we really focus on advertising as the way out of it because everyone was going, can I say this in COVID? Can I show people hugging? You know, it's like all these questions that no one asked. So we decided very quickly to provide the answer to that. So to try and be helpful and, you know, kind of be part of the solution, you know, rather than suffer the problem.

42:34But you're right. It's very powerful, isn't it? When you've got a collective challenge like that to bring people together. And I think it was an incredible time for the contract between employees and the organization and how they felt about work and how work became much more functional and practical when you were sitting at home in front of your computer. I had an amazing assistant at the time who became our chief happiness officer. You know, we did team events where people were, I think we made cookies at home online on Microsoft Teams or made homemade pasta or something similar. You know, you had to do so many different things that weren't obvious before.

43:09And so keeping people on board, focused, happy. And they worked very, very hard during that period. Oh, it was very stressful, wasn't it? And most people were doing more with less as well. I mean, I think we had a 20 % cut. I can't remember exactly what it was now. But, you know, we were having to do more work for less sales with fewer people. It was very hard, very, very hard. And it was extremely fast. Yeah. I think, you know, the first sort of wave was everybody moving to e-commerce. And that was the first step. Then the second wave was, well, then everybody figured out you actually needed performance media to drive e-commerce.

43:45So you suddenly had to move to that. And I think the third wave was, well, if everybody's bidding really hard on the performance side, you've got to differentiate yourself with activation and events and content. And all that happened, you know, every three, four months, the market was changing. And then we got this sort of sudden bounce back, didn't we, as well, that happened the following year. And then after that, this kind of slow slide into, well, it's not technically, a recession, but it certainly feels like a recession because of cost of living crisis, I suppose. It has the effect of a recession, doesn't it, in terms of people's disposable incomes going down, which is like a third challenge to deal with.

44:15So you kind of went, you know, can't supply, oversupply, you know, cost of living, changes in behaviours. I mean, probably never been three years like it, has there, in terms of changing market dynamics? True. I think, you know, some previous generations talked about living through the war. We've but we've lived through COVID and we'll remember that. No, but it's true that consumers are not purely online or purely offline. So the bricks coming back and rebalancing and people understanding how they want to buy things. And particularly in our business, there's discovery, there's replenishment, there's excitement.

44:46You sometimes need to go into a store. Fragrance, we still haven't figured out scratch and sniff on the screen. So fragrance is still something you want to experience a little bit and do differently. So there's so many pieces to balance that. I think what's good for our business, I don't know if you saw our Q1 results, you know, we were probably, I think we're at plus 13 as a group, you know, it's something called the lipstick effect. I don't know if you've heard of that, which is, you know, in times of crisis, people pull back from high value items, so cars and jewelry and holidays, and they go towards beauty and health and wellness because it makes them feel good.

45:18So that's great. That's great for our business. And we've seen that driving us post this COVID period. So there's a rebalancing of on and offline and beauty is still very dynamic. And that makes it exciting. That's really interesting. I spent most of my career in soft drinks and we had exactly the same dynamic. So when recessions hit, basically people look for everyday treats. So, you know, like a Pepsi or something, you know, not super premium. But we saw this shift. Well, it was two things, actually. One to value for money, obviously, like a squash. But also at the top end, people were treating themselves.

45:53So it was the middle bit, the loss. But basically at both ends, it's the value but also the treat with things that came through. That's it. And we saw, you know, there was a combo of COVID, everyone was home, so wellness exploded. So skincare where people look after themselves was just colossal. OK, makeup and fragrance sort of slowed down a little bit, but everybody was looking after themselves. Then you've got this treating effect coming back. So you've seen lots of our categories moving in different ways. Fragrance is on fire as a category. You just give me such deja vu with that scratch and sniff.

46:21Because back in the day, right, every magazine had about five or six kind of little scratch and sniff things. All those mini, mini samples you used to get in sort of GQ and stuff like that. So what's the equivalent of that now? So we still do sampling. We have an enormous fragrance portfolio, probably lots of brands that you didn't even believe were ours because we have licenses for them. So we operate Ralph Lauren Fragrances, Armani, Valentino, Prada. And sampling is big in the fragrance world in the most sustainable way possible. But still, you need to sniff it and understand a little bit what's going on.

46:50You do, don't you? Definitely. Now, we were talking about books earlier, weren't we? Range, David Epstein's book. It's amazing. and I know you and I are big fans of that. There's another book as well that is close to your heart, isn't it? Tell me about that book. Yeah, I always talk about those two books. So range one of them in terms of career and the other one is Quiet by Susan Cain, which is about introverts. I think this is when introverts rule the world. And I think those two books for me are always, they're almost pillars for me. One explains my career and says, okay, well, all the weird choices I made are actually really useful.

47:20And the introverts one is, it reminds me that the people who speak first and speak loudest are not always the smartest or they don't come across and they don't have to be the leaders. I'm not the one who speaks loudest. I'm not good in parties. I loved being a restaurant manager and working behind the bar, but I hate being in bars at 11 o 'clock at night when there's lots and lots of people and I don't know who to talk to. So that book is really important and I love talking about introverts. So to all the introverts listening, what would be your top tips for surviving or thriving? Let's say thriving, let's not surviving, that puts it down, doesn't it?

47:53But to thrive in a marketing career at a senior level like yourself, what are the top tips for introverts? Well, so the first top tip's got to be to read that book. Yes. No, because that's the book that explains, you know, it's hard to explain as one top tip what it means to be an introvert and to struggle. I think, you know, we were talking earlier about going to dinners. And so I go to this dinner almost once a month where there are about 200 people in the room and I feel very intimidated. But then I told myself, the reality is when you sit down at the table, there's only one person on either side of you.

48:22So suddenly 300 people becomes two. And actually everybody's interested in other people as a human being. They always want to know what you do about your family. So I think, you know, reminding yourself that everybody else is a human, understanding how you get your energy and when you need to speak up or out. You know, lots of time it comes back to public speaking. I've not really got an issue with public speaking as long as I'm prepared. It's just about preparing. And so planned spontaneity is really important. you know even when you're going to be spontaneous and talk about something talk to the team make a presentation you've got to prepare and know that and then i think probably finding recharge times finding how you relax how you get your energy back i think one of the things in that book is you know you know that you have to spend a bit of alone time or you know you need netflix or a book to recharge and then i think the last one that a coach many years ago helped me with was was sitting in meetings and they they gave me this crutch which was i know that i need to speak in the first five minutes of a meeting to be comfortable for the whole rest and participate if i don't crack those first five minutes then suddenly i'm in the corner trembling and i can't say anything i don't know if i'm trembling but so it's finding these tricks that help you overcome and then remembering that a lot of that intimidation we feel two-thirds of it's between our ears and in our heads definitely um it's one of the one of the things we always swear by at system one is always end on a high and i'm going to ask you about because you just mentioned a chief happiness officer and we know at system one as well happiness is the most powerful emotion what does a chief happiness happiness officer do and how do you achieve happiness i think that's probably isn't that the most creative job in any organization it's about understanding the pulse of how people are feeling figuring out what's going to make a difference figuring out what what people need either personally or as an organization you know we talked a lot about the skills we need in marketing teams but collaboration is really important and so people's relationships so i I like to spend a lot of time, you know, I've just started a new job in Singapore, trying to spend a lot of time making sure that people get to know each other as humans, not as what's your job?

50:23What do I complain about when it hasn't gotten done? So I think, you know, that's the role in the organization of looking after our people, understanding how they are, how they're feeling, how their workload is. But then also what from a human point of view is going to make them do their job better and be more comfortable doing it. So the secret to happiness? I haven't got that one. Was that actually someone's role? I think Scott Galloway has a formula. Does he? Of course he does. But is it actually someone's job called chief happiness officer? Also my assistant. That's the most important part of the job.

50:54My happiness and everybody else's. Brilliant. Well, that's one action from this we're definitely going to take is, yeah, everyone needs a chief happiness officer. Lex, I love it. Thank you very much. That's brilliant. And what a perfect way to end. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for listening, ladies and gentlemen. That was a brilliant episode of the Uncensored CMO. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you don't want to miss an episode again, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts, whether you're listening or watching on YouTube. If you want to follow me, I'm at Uncensored CMO over at Twitter or find me on LinkedIn at John Evans.

51:24Thanks for watching and thanks for listening.